Friday, 16 March 2012

A little bit of history....

A few people have been asking, why I chose to do Children's surface design and so i thought I would let you know a little history about the concept!

Six15am Started, in 2011 whilst I was studying Textiles and Surface Design BA (hons) at Cleveland College of Art and Design. It is all about Surface Design for children, looking at new Innovative ways to inspire young minds. My main focus is on wallpaper and even interactive pieces; however I have also have experience in creating designs for card & gift, fashion and print. As a child I dreamed of being an Interior Designer, I would watch as many design programs as I possibly could whilst admiring the designers, I looked up to them, almost idolised them. I saw myself then as a designer, I may not have known anything about the industry but I knew that when I grew up I would design for Interiors.As I grew older my passion for art and design increased, I started off studying graphic design, which I enjoyed, I liked the clean and crispness of the graphical process, the applications used and the end result, however, I missed the texture available from hand processes and so whist studying my Foundation BTec in Art and Design I started to explore other areas of art and design. I soon found a passion for textiles, and as my final project I looked at childhood memories. This is where it really took off. Inspired by my own memories, friends, family, and also watching my son and brother play, my passion for children’s design blossomed. I began to look more into children’s design and illustration, trips to places like, Seven Stories, the children’s book gallery where I saw original concepts and drawings for children’s book illustration and also Eureka and the Life museums which are both interactive museums designed for children, excited me and gave me an abundance of inspiration and motivation. It was then I decided to go to Cleveland College of Art and Design to Study Textiles and Surface Design. Whilst at Cleveland College of Art and Design (CCAD) a whole new world of design and opportunity’s arose. I had the chance to visit places such as Premier Vision, where we had a stall exhibiting work from our college amongst thousands of other colleges and design company’s, to be given the opportunity to attend such an event was to me a real privilege, as a designer I got so much out of it. I became aware of market levels, developed a much larger range of contacts and inspiration and also learned some selling techniques and pitches whilst working on the college stall. Being at CCAD opened many doors, I had the chance to visit many places such as the V&A Museum, Interiors UK and even send my work to Printsource New York. In second year we also worked a live brief for Hallmark card company. The three years I spent at CCAD were the most exciting and influential years of my life.In my final year at CCAD we branched off into our own speciality’s, I decided upon children’s wallpaper, I had been so excited about third year and finally being able to design for the little people who inspire me in life. With the two projects we had in third year I decided I would design for young girl’s interiors in the first half and then for final Major I would design for boys, but I wanted to push it further, I didn’t want to just be another wallpaper designer for Children. I wanted to inspire them, and help them learn, I wanted to design with play in mind. This is where my ideas for Interactive wallpaper for Children came from, and so this is what I build Six15am Designs upon.